Oil advice

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Jeroen posted this in a restoration thread, I feel it warrants a wider audience; I hope he doesn't mind me copying it to here:

Zinc was in all oil till about '90 because catalyc converters go bad by zinc. Like all ohv engines and so Triumph engines that were running in 1990 and had their zinc period and still run today with all the same parts on the same place do not need zinc now. That is why these engines from the 1990 did and do run still ok with the zinc less oil in 2001, 2009 and still in 2016.

A overhauled engine with new parts do need zinc. That the current valve lifters are of a less material you can also take in mind.

During start up there is no oil. I use a very sticky grease that contains very much zink and does stay on the lobes for about ten minutes. In an ohv engine the cam does need some splash but there isnt the very first minute. This grease is from joe gibs racing. A company that does v8 nascar etc. but all the v8's in the US of A do have ohv and a camshaft somewhere low so the zinc problem was much bigger there. Mr.Joe gibbs made a fantastic grease.

The running in is for 97,6% the rings have to wear to the cilinderwall. You can achieve that by using very bad oil that makes the engine wear a lot. If you do not do this and have good oil the rings don't bed in and you will have an oil consuming engine. So buy the worst oil you can get.

I did work 10 years at europe's biggest classic car company and consumed about 7000 liter oil a year. My job there was keep the guy's at work, pick the nice jobs for myself and the parts. When it was about 2-3 camshafts a month replacing from cars that were bought and sold with a recent overhauled engines i started to wonder. First had the camshafts checked for hardness and all was ok. Starting to read and discovered the big problem and asking myself what oil do we use? I had about 10 different classic car oils tested in a lab and the rennomated classic car oils were not really classic car oils. It say's classic because it has "classic" viscosity but not the right amount of zinc. One party i did invite (ELF) did take their classic oil from the market in NL because the testresults were bad and different form their own spec sheet. I think they had it tested too of the record and decides that few cans a year for the classic owners we do not want to take the risk. But you can still buy Castrol.

The outcome was most classic oils have too less zinc for being classic and the spec sheets were different than what is really was. The good thing was that bardahl classic oil was very good. So from then it was bardahl about 7000 liter a year. But not having many choices and the old ferrari's needed 10w60 to keep the oilpressure gauge a bit up there is an alternative. ZDDPlus. Also an American additive. A very concentrated zinc additive what you can use in combination with any oil. Had it tested mixed with "normal" oil and results ok.

Customers happy, I happy and the boss happy not having warranty camshaft replacements anymore.

So the conclusion is classic oils are a waste money if you think you protect your engine more than a decent brand normal 20w50. If you want your zinc there is Bardahl 15w50 classic that is a very good classic oil. Using your own oil there is zddplus to mix. running in grease you take joe gibs running in grease. And not be tempted to use any other lubies because it doesn not work whatever famous brand is on it.

But again just my experience.

Jeroen